Apple Updates Panther Via Software Update

arobase writes "Apple releases update to Panther thru Software Update. The build number changes from 7A179 to 7A202. Updates Mail, Exposé and iChat."

Comments

updates to closed developer betas make news now?

[RalphBNumbers]

So they've updated a closed developer beta that only a few thousand people have legally, and this is news?

If you want to talk about closed betas of Apple's upcoming updates, at least talk about the recent one that fixes the screensaver character buffer bug that got plastered all over /. a few days ago. It isn't all that important either, but at least it serves as a good followup.

Who cares?

[GoRK]

Of course they update it via Software Update. It is, after all, their software update service. It's not even out yet. Big fuckin deal.

Re:updates to closed developer betas make news now

[profet]

Are you implying that files off bittorrent aren't legal?

One step closer to Linux

[mhesseltine]

• apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade
• up2date
• emerge -u world

But hey, it's progress, right?

Re:One step closer to Linux

[DMDx86]

57 steps for sound card?

lets see..

Step 1: /sbin/modprobe es1370

Where are the other 56 steps? You Mac fanboys really are smart, arent ya?

Re:One step closer to Linux

[Synic]

If you ended up with needing a module that wasn't compiled or provided with your initial setup it can be a pain in the arse for a newbie to set up and compile the kernel sources themselves.

Re:One step closer to Linux

[pediddle]

Well, that's 21 more characters than the macboys have to type (not to mention discovering that your card's module is "es1370" -- "what the hell is a module?").

[I love Linux and have yet to own a Mac, but I can see why the newbies complain]

Re:One step closer to Linux

[acidrain]

You know I miss the good old days of having to get under the hood when you install a new distro. I installed a recent version a month ago, and everything just worked!?!? I was like WTF is this? Clicked on the little "test sound" installer diologue and sat there in shock listening to the thing. After a few minutes of poking around checking all of my devices and successfully launching major apps I walked away in disgust. That was no fun at all! How can I feel intellectually superior about knowing how to configure packages from a dos partition after booting off a linux floppy? Mabey in a few years I'll bring out an old copy of Slackware and start evangelising it.

Re:One step closer to Linux

[pediddle]

If you are that ignorant about Linux, then you shouldn't be using it in the first place.

That's the attitude that keeps ignorant people from using it. Keep it up.

(BTW, I resent your usage of "you", since I'm merely playing devil's advocate)

Re:One step closer to Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Excuse me, but I'm missing your point. How the hell is

• apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade
• up2date
• emerge -u world

easier/better than clicking "Install" when the notification window comes up?

Re:One step closer to Linux

[Dahan]

I should note that Red Hat's hardware detection system would detect the sound card automatically.

Well then, I'll note that I recently installed RedHat 9 on a machine with two NICs, an Intel PRO 100S and some Accton. Only the Intel NIC was detected--no sign of the Accton except for a brief mention in /proc/pci. Eventually, I found out that I was supposed to use the 8139too module. That module is included with RH9, so why wasn't the card detected automatically?

Re:One step closer to Linux

[FredFnord]

> (BTW, I resent your usage of "you", since I'm merely playing devil's advocate)

If you are given to resenting being called stupid, you should learn not to play devil's advocate.

This is not a slur... I play devil's advocate all the time, and I get called stupid all the time. But then, I have a thick skin.

-fred

Re:One step closer to Linux

[Mikey-San]

Yeah, that's what a lot of people just don't understand. It may be easy to type a short command in a shell window, but most end-user/average consumer types are deathly afraid of the command-line. (I'd like to blame DOS's shitty CLI for this, as bash and the C shells are nice.)

Geeks will use a CLI; Mom and Dad won't.

Re:One step closer to Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

The steps for a mac:

Step 1: Make out with girlfriend while listening to music on your new powerbook

Re:One step closer to Linux

[Dixie_Flatline]

It's not just that they're scared, there's a lot more to know in those three short lines.

In both instances, you must know what you're doing, every step of the way. Those three lines can be arranged in 9 distinct ways. If you type them out of order you won't get the same result. If you typo, it doesn't work. Yes, you can probably do it by rote, but you still have to be more aware of what's going on at any moment than you do when you click 'Install'.

I LIKE the command line, but I KNOW that it's not the same amount of work. Us geeks would do well to remember that.

Re:One step closer to Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

I play devil's advocate all the time, and I get called stupid all the time.

Are you sure that these two things are related?

Re:One step closer to Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm, Hey moron - those 3 lines are commands for different distributions. You pick the one appropriate to yours. Obviously you're not very good at the command line or you would've recognized that.

Re:One step closer to Linux

[Alex Reynolds]

You're just bitter because you have to use IRIX.

Re:One step closer to Linux

[Dahan]

If you want a gay machine use a Mac.

Indeed, this is precisely the reason I use a Mac. It's a very attractive tangerine colour.

Re:One step closer to Linux

[jonadab]

> You know I miss the good old days of having to get under the
> hood when you install a new distro.

So, umm, use the LFS distro. Only, instead of Linux, use a
different kernel, BSD or Hurd or something. Then you can get
under the hood a little. Better yet, write your own operating
system from scratch.

Re:One step closer to Linux

[jonadab]

Second NICs for some reason seem to be more of a problem. It would
probably have detected the second one fine if the first one weren't
there. (I'm not trying to make an excuse; it _ought_ to detect both,
certainly.)

Re:One step closer to Linux

[Alan Partridge]

"It may be easy to type a short command in a shell window, but most end-user/average consumer types are deathly afraid of the command-line. (I'd like to blame DOS's shitty CLI for this, as bash and the C shells are nice.)"

When was the last time a GUI gave you a syntax error message?

Using a CLI for the status is genuinely pathetic.

Re:One step closer to Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

jonadab, please check into a hospital as soon as possible, your humor transplant is failing.

Mac BitTorrent files.

[Anonymous Coward]

MacTorrents.

Enjoy.

Re:Mac BitTorrent files.

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh.... where? Why not post a link or something?

Re:Hrm, I'm thinking they meant Jaguar

[Anonymous Coward]

No.... they meant Panther. It comes up as 'Test software update 10.3'..

What?

[lnoble]

I don't have Panther you insensitive-clod.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is this funny????? It's so over used!!

This just in! Exclusive news story! Stop presses!

[Anonymous Coward]

Other related breaking stories brought to you by the newshounds at Slashdot:

• Microsoft updates Windows via Windows Update
• Debian updates Linux via apt-get
• The FreeBSD Project updates FreeBSD via make world
• The Santa Cruz Operation updates SCO UNIX via lawsuits
• Other hot upgrade methods will be brought to you by Slashdot as we receive further information from our sources here at /.

new update nice...

[Anonymous Coward]

I have the new Panther and the new update was very welcome. The changes made that I have noticed are a bit more stable (hasn't unexpectedly quit anything since, versus a couple of times before). Also, one cool feature is that in mail when you type in an email that matches someone in your Addr. Book or someone in your email list then it creates a button like image (like the new icon text with bgcolors). It makes it really simple and clean!

Panther rocks. If you don't have it, please don't be bitter. Be patient, it will come.

Re:new update nice...

[Anonymous Coward]

Wondering if you can say whether Panther's Mail.app has introduced a choice of encodings for attachments, to facilitate sending attachments to Windows PCs? (Lack of encoding choices being one of the worst remaining faults in Mail.app- as compared to Entourage etc- for many users.)

Re:This just in! Exclusive news story! Stop presse

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, (-1, No Sense Of Humor) for whoever modded this post.

Re:Delicious Mac Torrents!

[Anonymous Coward]

That's fucking awesome! AC posts a link to WAREZ on slashdot, and gets modded up as informative!

Post more warez links in this thread! What the hell, doesn't make any difference now.

Screen saver not completely fixed

[Ineffable 27]

According to macfixit.com, the screen saver bug re. long passwords is fixed, but the other bug remains: the one which allows programs to be quit while the screen saver is on, as long as 'keyboard access' to the dock is turned on.

the reason why they'd do this

[goodchef]

There would seem to be no compelling reason to use software update for a patch that's for a still-developers-only product. 1) It does make it easier for those developers to get it. But the bigger reason I see is that since pretty much everyone who has Panther will install this, Apple would get a decent count of the number of installed copies of Panther, and from that a fairly decent estimate of the amount of piracy.

Personally, I could download it, but I'll just wait until August when they release it. One of the big reasons I like Macs so much is that they just work, and installing a prerelease version of an OS while they're still tweaking it and fixing bugs means goodbye to that.

Re:the reason why they'd do this

[soullessbastard]

Well, there may be more people who have Panther legally then just WWDC attendees. Apple does have a Software Seeding Program which has been around for years. While I don't have a seeding key to be a member of the program any longer, I expect Panther builds are part of it.

Not all WWDC attendees are necessarily in the seeding program to download updates to prelrelease software, so there is a valid reason aside from piracy tracking to put the update in Software Update instead of just in the seeding site.

Still, even if you are tempted to download and install illegally, or if you have it legally and are thinking of installing it on your main machine, there's a good reason not to use it except on test machines. Read the license carefully...one of the sections of the license implies that the OS and dev tools are time limited and will stop functioning after a certain date.

The only folks I can see this hurting are those who don't heed the recommendations of putting seed software only on test machines, or those who got Panther betas illegally and didn't bother to read the fine print.

There are also rumors that you will not be able to install 10.3 GM on a machine running one of the prereleases. A friend at a large company told me that their company recommended that their employees be very careful about where they install Panther previews and to not put it on their main work machines.

I'd conjecture that the workaround is to go back, reinstall a clean copy of 10.2, then put GM on there (or other OS when the preview expires). But no one can be certain until the day 10.3 GM comes.

Remember, Panther is beta software for testing purposes. Given what I've learned, I'd caution everyone to treat it as such.

Re:the reason why they'd do this

[phillymjs]

There would seem to be no compelling reason to use software update for a patch that's for a still-developers-only product.

How about this reason: To test the new Software Update control panel?

I have only given my downloaded copy of Panther a cursory playing-with on my spare G4, but I can tell you that Software Update is quite different from the one in Jaguar-- you can opt to have the computer automatically install "important" updates, and there are a few other changes that have been made.

~Philly

Re:the reason why they'd do this

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought about this before installing the update... But then I just decided to install it anyway. I am a member of apple's developer connection, but not a paid member. I wish there was a way to get in on the Beta program without paying $1500, because I've found several bugs with it that I have not been able to find anyone mention on the message boards.

I fully plan on buying Panther when it's released, but I wish Apple would allow me to contribute to their product to help track down bugs.

Re:the reason why they'd do this

[Shishio]

But no one can be certain until the day 10.3 GM comes.

Well, the license agreement and the instructions in the installer specifically state that the developer release will not be upgradeable to the full release. So, we can definitely expect not being able to upgrade. I still have it installed, of course, but on separate partitions on work machines and on the main partition only on a test machine.

Re:the reason why they'd do this

[Anonymous Coward]

Big deal. Most of us just do a fresh reinstall of new OS X's when they come out anyway.

Re:the reason why they'd do this

[OnsightFlash]

i feel that the real reason Apple allowed the seed of Panther to flourish over BitTorrent is that it gives the development teama gigantic beta tester system. They pretty much know what forums to monitor for feedback , usually intelligent and insightful, as the average user has no idea of how to obtain the dev version.
Apple benefits greatly from the distribution of the Panther builds. Of course the dev build will have to be repalced by the ultimate final release, but that's okay.

Re:the reason why they'd do this

[soullessbastard]

I suspect if they wanted to they could build a large legal testing team that had valid channels to report bugs. Does anyone else remember that OS X 10.0 Beta program sold CDs to people to join the beta program for like $10-$20? It was right after DP4 (which was seeding program only, I think).

I expect they don't shut down the torrents not because they want beta testers, but just because the distributed nature of torrents makes them hard to shut down without a very active team of people trying to always find where they crop up. It's possible, but would require some human resources.

For folks with Panther seeds, IIRC it's recommended to feed in bugs through the user's ADC account radar/bugreporter. Note that ADC accounts also have records of e-tickets for WWDC 2003, so in theory it's possible to track individual 'illegal' users through bug reports too, so if you weren't at WWDC you may not want to report any you find.

ed

Re:the reason why they'd do this

[Anonymous Coward]

They said this about the Jaguar developer beta, too. It was a lie then.

What they mean is that the software update utility cannot upgrade the system to a full release. Popping the CDs in and running a regular "upgrade" or "archive and install" will not hurt you.

Re:the reason why they'd do this

[Alan Partridge]

"They pretty much know what forums to monitor for feedback , usually intelligent and insightful,"

You gotta be shittin me!

Which forums would these be, pray tell?

Re:the reason why they'd do this

[neverkevin]

wait until August when they release it

Where did you get that information? I was told by 2 Apple reps that there was no release date, only that it would be ready by the end of the year. After running the beta for a few weeks August seems a little optimistic.

Expos� on G3's

[Sophrosyne]

Does this fix the Exposé issues on the G3? I had panther, but decided it was too early to really use properly.. Also can you any of the mozilla variants?

Re:Expos� on G3's

[neverkevin]

I am using Expose on a G3 with no problems. As for mozilla, I don't know, with Safari I have no need to download mozilla.

Re:Expos� on G3's

[Sophrosyne]

Did you have a problem originally...? I have a g3 600mhz imac... and exposé did not fully work... so the question is did you have a problem before and have the update fix it? or are you just giving me useless info?
also another issue is mame doesnt work properly, neither does snes9x... add to that the mozilla issue, inability to backup and a handful of other minor issues, im very weary in trying to reinstall this.

Re:Expos� on G3's

[neverkevin]

I have never had a problem with expose or any other Apple program on my 600mhz iBook. However, the Cisco VPN software is really buggy in 10.3b and I have had 2 system crashes pre update (1 crash toasted a few files on the harddrive). I talked to the local Apple rep about 10.3, he said they are still very much in the development process and that Apple know how buggy this release is. He also said they expect it to ship by the end of the year, so being about 5 months away from ship date, you can't really expect much in the way of stability.

Re:Panther?! Where!?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, since this is slashdot, if you look further up in this thread a bunch of warez sites have already been posted! Go Slashdot!

Re:updates to closed developer betas make news now

[harveyswik]

Oh no no no no no no - yes.

Re:updates to closed developer betas make news now

[ChuyMatt]

Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. knowwhaddimean? knowwhaddimean?!

Re:updates to closed developer betas make news now

[HiredMan]

at least talk about the recent one that fixes the screensaver character buffer bug that got plastered all over /. a few days ago

The update patch for this will ship in two days (7-14-03) as it is currently in QA testing. But I don't know what that has to do with 'closed betas' as it applies to current systems.

=tkk

PS Don't blame me - I submitted the patch story but it was rejected.

Re:Obligatory Monty Python reference:

[redJag]

wtf?

Setting the Software Update Timing?

[NaugaHunter]

Has anyone found a way to manually set when the update will check? If you check manually, it sets itself forward by day/week/month according to your setting but at the current time. The problem is occasionaly I'll be surfing at an odd hour (read: 3AM Saturday), see that an update has been released, and kick off the updater. It then resets itself to check the following Saturday, 3AM. I've looked through various preference files and a couple of sites I thought might have something.

For the record, it is possible to change the time to the current time by changing the Daily/Weekly/Monthly option and changing it back. Unfortunately this resets the counter - I tried it know and even though it last checked 4 days ago it now won't check until next Sunday morning.

So if anyone has found this, or is better at looking, I'm betting I'm not the only one that would like to know. (I tried looking for files that changed today with the time I changed it, but either a) I did my search poorly or b) it's saved in a system file with other preferences that doesn't get updated immediately.) I suppose it's possible it's only saved in PRAM, but I'm not sure how to find that how - maybe someone with more Developer access could ask around.

And yes, changing the current date/time, moving the D/W/M setting, and then resetting the time would work. But that's crazy talk. I can appreciate the logic that Joe User will most likely check the first time at a time they'd normally be on, but not all of our usage schedules are that orderly. It wouldn't have hurt them to give the option of specifying it exactly, so you can check manually occasionally but not reset the automatic scheduling.

Re:Setting the Software Update Timing?

[neverkevin]

You could do with with cron and the command line software update program. But the time it checks shouldn't really matter, it will cache that there are new updates and bug you the next time you login or the next scheduled time. If your computer is off when it was scheduled to run it will check as soon you login. You shouldn't miss anything.

Re:Obligatory Monty Python reference:

[ratfynk]

What can I help you with, Sir.
Panther, is it a BSD or Not?.....
Welll.....somewhat.
IS PANTHER A BSD OR NOT?.....
Welll......yes.
Then if Panther is a BSD and BSD is dead then...
BSD is not dead....
Look it just hangs there trying to update and doing nothing. I tell you if Panther is a BSD then it is dead....
Panther is not dead it is just a BlueBSD....
I TELL YOU IT IS DEAD.
It is not dead, it is just resting. Pining for the fiords...
LOOK YOU FOOL THIS PANTHER IS DEAD IT HAS EXPIRED, MOVED ON, GONE TO MEET ITS MAKER, IT IS AN X BSD.
Ok would you like to buy a printer instead?

Re:updates to closed developer betas make news now

[Brad Puett]

Say No More!! ;^)

Re:updates to closed developer betas make news now

[macmurph]

So they've updated a closed developer beta that only a few thousand people have legally, and this is news?

This is news for nerds! And this dearly matters to me!

Re:more stable ?

[seletz]

Hmm, i've only suffered 2 crashes of Safari (both which, it seems, in combination with heavy java apps ...).

So, i'm off booting and running swupdate ...

Re:This just in! Exclusive news story! Stop presse

[Anonymous Coward]

Other related breaking stories brought to you by the newshounds at Slashdot:
Microsoft updates Windows via Windows Update...

The story is news because they are serving up automated updates to an unreleased OS, which is kinda cool. I can see where you failed to spot the "man bites dog" angle, since you might not have been aware that "Panther" is the name for the version of OS X which is still in beta.

Wish it were so

[Lysol]

I'm part of the seeding program and I can guarantee you 1000% that neither Apple's Xcode nor Panther are available on the ADC or via the developer DVD - last one I just got was for July '03.

As I understand it, the *only* people that got copies of Panther, possibly besides corporate partners, were people that attended the WWDC. After watching the keynote at the Apple store in SOHO, I was bouncing off the walls for weeks trying to get a copy. But now, even tho it's avail as a torrent, it's like, meh, I'll wait. The need has worn off and I got work to do.

hmm...

[stevebob2019]

Its a good thing I have 10.3...

Oh, wait...

Re:This just in! Exclusive news story! Stop presse

[Anonymous Coward]

What's your point? Microsoft released updates to its preview versions of XP via Windows Update, Debian uses apt-get for its unstable branch, and you can make world (after cvsuping in the standard manner) on the development branch of FreeBSD...

Re:Usernames being truncated?

[Anonymous Coward]

install linux.

Re:This just in! Exclusive news story! Stop presse

[Anonymous Coward]

this should be quickly followed up with Ask Slashdot posts ... "I am hungry, what should I eat?" and the classic Ask Slashdot: "What time is it? Are there any devices or methods of finding out what the current time is?"

you forgot

[WhiteDragon]

everybody's favorite, gentoo:

emerge sync

Re:Panther?! Where!?

[ahbe]

Hey! That's not funny, after reading that I looked at ALL the posts above, and non of them mention a warez site! What a let down... And I was so excited to finnaly find a copy of Panther. Oh well...

Re:Hrm, I'm thinking they meant Jaguar

[Anonymous Coward]

No.... it doesn't. No such software update appears, at least on my screen. It doesn't even show up under "Inactive Updates". So, again how precisely does one get this update? Just running Software Update in the usual manner is apparently not enough.

Heh, touche!

[FredFnord]

> Are you sure that these two things are related?

Well, they're correlated, anyway. :-)

-fred

Monty Python reference: Bring out your dead!

[bob_calder]

Bring out your dead!
I'M NOT DEAD YET!
*WACK*
Git 'im outa 'ere.

Re:Sorry...how to get it?

[Anonymous Coward]

How is this "Offtopic"? You describe a way of getting a new software update, someone says that it's not working for them, asks how to get it.... Seems pretty dead-on topic, much more so that trolling about Slashdot's choice of articles.
Who modded this down? I too would like to know how to get it!!

grrrr